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President Frank Sinatra
Early Life Francis Albert Sinatraa was born on December 12, 1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey,67b the only child of Italian immigrants Natalina "Dolly" Garaventa and Antonino Martino "Marty" Sinatra.101112c Sinatra weighed 13.5 pounds (6.1 kg) at birth and had to be delivered with the aid of forceps, which caused severe scarring to his left cheek, neck, and ear, and perforated his eardrum—damage that remained for life. Due to his injuries at birth, his baptism at St. Francis Church in Hoboken was delayed until April 2, 1916. A childhood operation on his mastoidbone left major scarring on his neck, and during adolescence he suffered from cystic acne that further scarred his face and neck.16 Sinatra was raised Roman Catholic.17 Sinatra's mother was energetic and driven, and biographers believe that she was the dominant factor in the development of her son's personality traits and self-confidence. Sinatra's fourth wife Barbarawould later claim that Dolly was abusive to him as a child, and "knocked him around a lot". Dolly became influential in Hoboken and in local Democratic Party circles. She worked as a midwife, earning $50 for each delivery, and according to Sinatra biographer Kitty Kelley, also ran an illegal abortion service that catered to Italian Catholic girls, for which she was nicknamed "Hatpin Dolly". She also had a gift for languages and served as a local interpreter. Sinatra's illiterate father was a bantamweight boxer who fought under the name Marty O'Brien. He later worked for 24 years at the Hoboken Fire Department, working his way up to captain. Sinatra spent much time at his parents' tavern in Hoboken,e working on his homework and occasionally singing a song on top of the player piano for spare change. During the Great Depression, Dolly provided money to her son for outings with friends and to buy expensive clothes, resulting in neighbors describing him as the "best-dressed kid in the neighborhood". Excessively thin and small as a child and young man, Sinatra's skinny frame later became a staple of jokes during stage shows. Sinatra developed an interest in music, particularly big band jazz, at a young age. He listened to Gene Austin, Rudy Vallée, Russ Colombo, and Bob Eberly, and idolized Bing Crosby. Sinatra's maternal uncle, Domenico, gave him a ukulele for his 15th birthday, and he began performing at family gatherings. Sinatra attended David E. Rue Jr. High School from 1928, and A. J. Demarest High School in 1931, where he arranged bands for school dances.36 He left without graduating, having attended only 47 days before being expelled for "general rowdiness".38 To please his mother, he enrolled at Drake Business School, but departed after 11 months.36 Dolly found Sinatra work as a delivery boy at the Jersey Observer newspaper, where his godfather Frank Garrick worked,f and after that, Sinatra was a riveter at the Tietjen and Lang shipyard. He performed in local Hoboken social clubs such as The Cat's Meow and The Comedy Club, and sang for free on radio stations such as WAAT in Jersey City. In New York, Sinatra found jobs singing for his supper or for cigarettes. To improve his speech, he began taking elocution lessons for a dollar each from vocal coach John Quinlan, who was one of the first people to notice his impressive vocal range. Musical Career A strike by the American Federation of Musicians against the major record companies curtailed Sinatra’s recording output during most of 1943–44. His solo recording career for Columbia Records began in earnest in November 1944, when he compensated for lost time by recording dozens of sides within a three-month period. Songs such as “If You Are But a Dream,” “ There’s No You,” “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” “Nancy,” and his theme song at that time, “Put Your Dreams Away,” are some of the first recordings in what would come to be known to fans as the “Columbia era” (1943–52). His chief arranger during these years was Axel Stordahl, who also left Dorsey in late 1942 to work exclusively with Sinatra. Stordahl’s spare string arrangements on beautiful recordings such as “You Go to My Head” (1945), “These Foolish Things” (1945), and “That Old Feeling” (1947) defined the sound of Sinatra’s Columbia years. Sinatra’s success continued unabated until about 1948. In later years, he speculated that his sudden drop in popularity was because of his reluctance to change styles and evolve musically. He also garnered a great deal of negative press throughout 1947–48. It was about this time that the public first read reports of his friendships with organized-crime figures, and newspaper accounts were published of Sinatra cavorting in Cuba with the likes of Lucky Luciano and Joe Fischetti, a prominent mob figure. There was also the widely reported incident, and resulting lawsuit, in which Sinatra punched gossip columnist Lee Mortimer, an action for which Sinatra received some vindication in later years when it was revealed that Mortimer had collaborated with the FBI to discredit Sinatra. Whatever the cause, Sinatra began a five-year period of professional decline and personal depression. Years of singing as many as 100 songs per day had taken its toll, and he lost his voice completely for several months in 1950 because of vocal-chord hemorrhaging. His divorce from first wife, Nancy, in 1951 and his subsequent stormy marriage to actress Ava Gardner further harmed his reputation. In addition, then-new Columbia Records president Mitch Miller cajoled Sinatra to record several banal novelty tunes that compromised his artistic credibility. In 1952 his Columbia recording contract came due and was not renewed, he was dropped by his talent agency, his network television show was canceled, and Sinatra was considered a has-been. Ironically, and despite Miller’s demands, several of Sinatra’s recordings from this period are now considered among his best, with shining examples such as “Mad About You,” “Nevertheless,” “Birth of the Blues,” and, especially, his 1951 recording of “I’m a Fool to Want You.” Presidency Sinatra was elected President on November 8th, 1972 running alongside former Governor of California, Ronald Reagan. His policies were more focused on combating communism and fixing internal problems. Sinatra wasn't able to pass much in his 2 terms in office except for weakening Soviet influence around the world, fixing up the developing border crisis at the Canadian-American border, and boost education spending. In 1980, Sinatra didn't seek a third term and Ronald Reagan, his VP, ran.